Chinese airlines traffic booms in first half of 2017

The air passenger traffic of major Chinese airlines achieved a robust growth amid the strong demand for travel in the first half of 2017.

Data recently published by the country's four major airlines - Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines - showed that their air passenger traffic grew 5%, 9.2%, 10.8% and 53.3% year-on-year, respectively.

Budget Chinese airlines Spring Airlines and Juneyao Air also saw their passenger traffic increase 26.8% and 26.7%, respectively, according to the companies.

China will overtake the US as the world's largest passenger market by 2024 and will control a market of 1.3 billion passengers by 2035, the International Air Transport Association predicted in October 2016.